A Garden of Oriental Wisdom. (Chinese Astrology - Bridget Giles)

Member Name: 2Quizzy

Product:	Chinese Astrology - Bridget Giles
Date:	29/03/04 (538 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining, concise, informative

Disadvantages: none I can think of

~ "A book is like a garden carried in the pocket." ~ Chinese Proverb.

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I'm a great fan of the Collins Gem books and own several. They're barely bigger than a pack of cards and yet jam-packed full of facts and information. This review is about one of my favourites. The Collins Gem book on Chinese Astrology.

This tiny book is truly a pocket-sized garden of Oriental Wisdom. It's divided into 13 sections. Each section is colour coded in the index and on the top right corner to make paging for what you want to find that much easier.

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The 12 Sections.

The first section is the Introduction. On 27 little pages they manage to cram everything you need to know to be able to work out your Chinese year sign as well as your Chinese hour sign. There's a small table of Chinese years which covers most of the 20th century and a brief yet comprehensive write-up on the concept of Yin and Yang. It also has the main characteristics for the five year elements, something a lot of bigger books leave out.

The following 12 sections are divided into the 12 Chinese year signs starting with Rat and ending with Pig/Boar. Each sign section starts with a little snippet of related Chinese animal trivia before being divided into smaller sub-sections of information pertaining to that sign.

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Sub-sections.

Sign Personality.
The good and the bad traits, sign element, deepest personality secret, what this sign need to develop to be balanced.

Example: Rat Secret - Rats have a morbid fear of failure and are gullible, but able to learn from their mistakes.

Best (lucky) Associations.
The sign's best choice of colours, foods, flowers/plants, season/climate.

Example: Ox Best - flower is orchid and their best climat
e/season is winter or somewhere cold.

Then there are three summaries for the typical/best/worst characteristics for the male, female and child born in this sign year.

Example: Tiger - Tiger men are passionate and protective, like fashion and dressing smart, are ambitious. Tiger women are intense in love, get aggressive if bored or have their freedom threatened, love travel and adventure. Tiger children are prone to accidents, usually enjoy school, are very impulsive.

Sign at home. How each sign feels about their home-life.

Example: Rabbit - Rabbit at home is into comfort and understated quality. Rabbits prefer to stay home and socialise so they throw great parties and dinners.

Sign at work and typical choices of occupation.

Example: Dragon. Dragons at work are born leaders and reach the top with seemingly no effort. Best career choices include war correspondent, sales, managing director, barrister.

Sign preferences. Likes and dislikes.

Example: Snake. Snakes like to spend on luxuries, to please others and keep things harmonious. Snakes dislike violence, prejudice and anything fake - including people!

Good friends. This sections deals with compatibilities for friendship or romance and each combination gets a symbol and small paragraph. The symbols are a triangle facing up for very good friend or romance, dark circle for friend, a square for bland, a light circle for mild conflict and a triangle facing down for conflict.

Example: Horse - Romance for Horse is Tiger or Goat. Conflict for Horse is Rat or Rabbit.

Sign In love. How this sign approaches relationships and romance.

Example: Goat. Goats are loving and romantic and fall hard and deep. They are never objective in love.

Sign and sex. How the sign approaches passion.

Example: Monkey. Monkeys and sex.. whew! Inventive, imaginative, enthusiastic, but tending towards being unfaithful
and even promiscuous.

Health. What will be health problem areas for this sign.

Example: Rooster. Roosters tend towards respiratory like asthma or tummy troubles, often brought on by stress. Roosters are prone to being hypochondriacs.

Leisure interests. Sports and hobbies.

Example: Dog - Dogs are sociable, but not into high risk. They'd rather go to a movie or spend the day with friends than bungy jump or go mountain climbing.

Year elements. Chinese astrology has 12 year signs, but also 5 elements that change every 2 years. This section gives the different year elements for that particular sign and describes how each Element changes the basic animal sign.

Example: Pig - 1935 was wood Pig - creative, wise, communicative Pigs. 1947 was fire Pig - brave, bold extreme Pigs. 1959 was earth Pig - well-balanced, hard-working, strong Pig. 1971 was metal Pig - outspoken, extrovert, intelligent Pigs. 1983 was water Pig - sympathetic, diplomatic, sensual Pigs.

Sign and Western Zodiac. Here the sign is matched up with it's western zodiac sign and each of the 12 combinations gets a brief paragraph on basic characteristics.

Example: Aries-Pig is enthusiastic, innocent and likeable. Good at art or business. Pisces-Rat is intuitive, versatile and successful in life, but a bit of a day-dreamer.

Finally each section finishes off with famous people sharing the same sign. Ranging from historical to fairly modern.

Examples: Rat - Mozart and Marlon Brando. Ox - Napoleon and Walt Disney. Tiger - H G Wells and Groucho Marx. Rabbit - Einstein and Fidel Castro. Dragon - Martin Luther King and Freud. Snake - Picasso and Ghandi. Horse - Rembrandt and Jimi Hedrix. Goat - Mark Twain and Mick Jagger. Monkey - Lord Byron and Charles Dickens. Rooster - Peter Ustinov and Johann Strauss. Dog - Churchill and Cher. Pig - Henry VIII and Alfred Hitchcock.


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..and a final Chinese proverb for the sceptics. : )

~ A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood. ~

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